Cities arose fairly recently in the long history of
humankind. Changes in climate c. 12 000 years ago led to the end of the Ice
Ages, to a warmer, moister climate that in certain parts of the world favored
the development of controlled agriculture and animal husbandry. No longer were
people dependent on the collecting or hunting of wild food sources. Thanks to
agriculture, in particular, permanent, year-round settlements developed. As
farmers settled together in small villages, as food surpluses were registered,
certain people were freed for other tasks - crafts, religious activities, etc.
Increase in population eventually resulted in cities, with such features as
monumental public architecture, figural art, writing, and social
stratification.

These changes, and the rise of cities, occurred at different
times in different parts of the world, with many regions never having cities at
all. The earliest cities appeared in the Near East. Here, the changes described
above began to take place in the eleventh to tenth millennia BC. By the fourth
millennium BC, developed cities had appeared. This article focuses on cities in
this region - the Near East, Egypt, and the Mediterranean basin - with a
concluding section on Teotihuacan (Mexico), as a New World comparison.

Daily Life Defined

`Daily life' in ancient cities comprises many elements. The
polarity between private and public is one basic way to structure any study. Private
life centers on the house. The architecture and objects (furniture,
decorations, utensils, and tools) suggest family relationships and activities
happening in the house. Gender and age relationships are important: male and
female, and children, mature adults, and the elderly. The life cycle with its
rites of passage can serve as a focus: birth, marriage, old age, death.
Household functions include food preparation and eating (or dining), hygiene,
sleeping, socializing, etc.

The public arena centers on social relationships, political
organization, and the maintenance of order, economic matters (making a living,
commerce and trade), and religion. Within a social hierarchy, different ranks
in society, from rulers to slaves, have their various occupations. Other
functions of city life were also public: religious practices, for one, and
certain entertainments, such as the Roman bath. But like private life, public
life takes place in a physical setting: buildings, monuments, streets, open
spaces, perhaps in connection with certain natural features (rivers, hills,
mountains, the sea, harbors).What these elements look like, individually and in
relation with others, is an essential part of recreating daily life in ancient
cities.

The Archaeology of
Daily Life in Cities

Archaeology as a Source of Information

The possibility of stepping into vanished worlds has a great
appeal. Archaeology, by exposing ruined cities, their buildings and their
artifacts, is an important vehicle for making this possible. For many, a visit
to an archaeological site is more exciting if one gets the sense of what living
there in a past time period was like. But for historic periods, ancient texts
have also been a prime source of information about ancient life. The Hebrew
Bible and Greek and Latin literature contain infinite details, combined with
the names of people and places. Ancient Near Eastern, Egyptian, and Mayan
texts, now readable thanks to decipherments in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, also offer much. For some, the written word is supreme; the reality
of place and object, the discipline of archaeology, are supplementary to the
texts. These preferences can be reflected in the structures of academic study
in universities, museums, and research centers.

We who wish to enter ancient worlds should not feel forced
to choose, for each source of information makes a valuable contribution. We
might well ask, though, what do archaeological excavations contribute that
literary sources cannot? Archaeology, the study of material culture, makes
clear the visual and the tactile. Ancient sounds (music), ancient smells (perfumes,
cooked foods, fuels), ancient tastes (foods, wines, other drinks) are lost to
us. Actions of all sorts and communications between people are recorded in
texts, and we can perhaps visualize them taking place. But archaeology gives us
the physical environment in which we can place the people and events we read
about: the natural setting, the built environment (the city, its plan, its
architecture), and the objects that ancient peoples created.

The Preservations of
Material Remains

The material remains from ancient times are never preserved
in their entirety. Climatic, geological, and cultural conditions all play a
part in preserving and destroying. A dry climate, such as that of Egypt,
preserves organic materials well. In contrast, in a wet, damp climate, the
human body and products from animals' bodies (leather, hair), wood and other
plant products, and even metal objects rot, rust, corrode, disintegrate. The
state of preservation affects our understanding of particular cultures.
Textiles, for example, were an important product of daily life and commercial
exchange, but they never survive with the completeness of a stone sculpture.

Geological factors also have impact. Earthquakes, fires,
volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, erosion, and the repeated flooding of
silt-bearing rivers (such as the Nile) all have the potential to change the
urban landscape. Human agency also has contributed to the alterations in the
material record. In cities occupied for centuries, the building materials of
structures collapsed or destroyed might be recycled into new constructions. At
the very least, foundations of buildings typically remain. Another standard
remnant of ancient city life is broken pottery, for ceramics, products of a technology
first developed in the mid-Neolithic period (eighth millennium BC), do not
disintegrate. Other cultural habits that have preserved artifacts include the
placing of objects in tombs and the depositing of offerings in religious
centers.

Variations of
Research Design: Effects on Understanding Ancient Daily Life

The questions that archaeologists seek to answer are hugely
varied. They can be shaped by the state of research in a particular region or
time period, its pasttraditions and current problems, and by the academic
training of the individual researcher. In the Mediterranean, Egypt, and the
Near East, approaches have included antiquarianism, the historical-descriptive,
and the anthropological. These should not be seen as mutually exclusive, but
overlap and complement each other, depending on the interests of the particular
researcher.

Antiquarianism refers to an interest in an object by itself,
a thing of beauty or curiosity. Compiling collections was often its goal. Today
this term is negative, for it suggests that the interest in the object is
shallow, divorced from any scientific study of the object's value in
understanding the past.

A historical-descriptive approach has dominated the
archaeology of our region in the past two centuries. Archaeologists seek to
understand the material record by creating a framework for its study: by
describing buildings and artifacts carefully, then by arranging them in
chronological (or historical) order, and by seeing developments through time
(diachronical): `what', `when', `where'. With such classifications in hand,
scholars can then compare and contrast developments between sites, between
regions, between time periods. In our region, such comparisons are generally
made within a particular civilization (Egyptian, Greek, Roman). For the study
of the material evidence of daily life, this approach has been essential.

Anthropological approaches, applied especially to
prehistoric cities, seek to understand the material record as a reflection of
human behavior. While historical-descriptive analyses are not ignored but
valued as helpful tools, the archaeologist focuses on larger questions, such as
`how' and `why'. In addition, the anthropologist is interested in comparing
situations between different civilizations, to extract larger lessons about the
nature of human societies.